Briefing a Better Logo. Part 3

This is a 3 part guide for Small Business Owners, and new business start ups to guide them though how to work with a freelance designer or agency when setting up their brand. Part 1 was published on Monday 24th and Part 2 on Wednesday 26th of this week.

Parts 1 and 2 covered the how to approach the brief when putting together the scope and direction of work for briefing a designer, you should now have a very detailed page of answers that give the designer enough guidance to be creative, but doesn't strangle the life out of the work. 

Now we're going to look at how to select the right designer or agency for the job, and touch on some of the warning signs.

1. Portfolio

Clearly a good portfolio is essential here, look for experience with a variety of brands, some big brand touch points, and some start up brand creation. Look for actual product photography of brands in-situ, and  don't be afraid to ask the designer which work is conceptual (so didn't make it to the real world) and which is operational, and being used. It really doesn't matter, good work is good work, but there should be a good mix of both.

2. Be Honest

After an agency has pitched their work they should always give you 3 options;

1. Pick one design and develop it further

2. Combine 2 or more of the ideas

3. Back to the drawing board.

Don't be afraid to send them back if nothing hits you in the guts from the start, you can't hurt a good designers feelings (that's probably not true, bet you could if you tried), and it's important you get something you love. This shouldn't cost you extra, but it depends on your agreement.

3. Pitch Options

In my experience it takes about a day or two to produce 3 good options, but I've seen designers promise so much more, and it's alway made me question how much thought they're putting into the work. Beware of designers promising 10+ variations of your logo, this is bad for a few reasons, firstly they clearly haven't understood your brief and secondly they're probably using stock logos, that they alter the wording on, and submit as bespoke work. If you've followed all of the steps on the Brief Builder in parts 1 & 2, your designer should be able to hit your requirement in 3 carefully crafted options.

4. Always get a Full Logo Suite

Once the logo is created and signed off, make sure you get it in all of the formats you'll need, these are;

• Full Colour Outlined EPS (Saved as Illustrator 10 to be safe)

• Black Mono Version EPS

• White Version EPS

• Full Colour Outlined GIF

• Black Mono Version GIF

• White Version GIF

• Full Colour JPEG

• Black JPEG

5. Develop this into a Brand

The next step is to develop this into a full blown brand, with a manual that any designer or agency can pick up and work easily with, we'll look at this next month.

Right, now, did I mention that Citizen design logos? Take a look at our work here, and if you want to meet up and go through a more extensive portfolio then please get in touch.

Read the whole Series.

Build a Better Brief Part 1

Build a Better Brief Part 2

Build a Better Brief Part 3

Get in touch ben@citizenstudios.co.uk

Visit www.citizenstudios.co.uk

Or call 07764 898 010